by RuthDE | Aug 28, 2026 | 2026, August, Belfast News Letter, Journalism
The Drumcree issue is back in the news, though there is hope that this time round no one has to die over it. Published: 26 August 2026 After a legal challenge by a member of the Orange Order, the High Court has quashed the Parades Commission ban on the annual parade...
by RuthDE | Aug 28, 2025 | 2025, August, Belfast News Letter, Journalism
The obituaries of Martin Smyth over the last few days took me back to the 1990s when I was getting to know the loyal institutions up close. Published: 28 August 2025 I wasn’t much of a fan of his politics. At a time when Sinn Fein were doing a fine job of bamboozling...
by RuthDE | Jul 18, 2023 | 2023, Belfast News Letter, Journalism, July
Sinn Féin so successfully parades lies as truths that they are often believed unquestionably by people with no particular agenda. Published: 18 July 2023 It helps that unionists are so terrible at public relations. Events at Drumcree 25 years ago are being revisited,...
by RuthDE | Feb 14, 2023 | 2023, Belfast News Letter, February, Journalism
What should happen to Manchester United’s Mason Greenwood now his case of attempted rape has been dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service? Published: 14 February 2023 Greenwood has not appeared for United or England since. Discussing this, the Matthew Syed, the...
by RuthDE | Jan 19, 2022 | 2022, Belfast News Letter, January, Journalism
“What Kate Hoey says is not terribly important,” sneered Susan McKay in the Irish Times, after the furore over Hoey’s forthright foreword to the Unionist Voice Policy Studies report, Vetoing the Protocol: Restoring Cross-Community Consent Protections. Published: 18...
by RuthDE | Jul 6, 2021 | 2021, Belfast News Letter, Journalism, July
With some of the usual suspects still boring on about a border poll, I want to go back to basics. Published: 6 July 2021 I apologise to those who have heard this story before, but I think it one of the most telling comments about Irish aspirations to unity I’ve ever...
by RuthDE | Jun 15, 2021 | 2021, Belfast News Letter, Journalism, June
As a friend of the Irish language, I hate the thought of the squalid deal now being negotiated between the DUP and Sinn Fein. Published: 15 June 2021 Irish has been ill-served by uncompromising advocates, few of whom seem no more fluent in it than Edwin Poots is said...
by RuthDE | May 25, 2021 | 2021, Belfast News Letter, Journalism, May
“Well when the votes were counted one parochial, backward looking, regressive who is 50 something and from Lagan Valley beat another one,” tweeted Alliance councillor Michael Long after the DUP leadership election. Published: 25 March 2021 “What is clear is that...
by RuthDE | Feb 17, 2020 | 2020, Belfast Telegraph, February, Journalism
We should honour those people who were forced to choose and took the courageous path Published: 16 February 2020 Here’s a story for anyone who has ever wondered how they would behave in wartime. Would they be cowards? Would they be heroes? Roy Kells, who was...
by RuthDE | Oct 21, 2019 | 2019, Belfast Telegraph, Journalism, October
The late Brian Kennaway, Michael Phelan and Ian Wilson did so much for reconciliation, says Ruth Dudley Edwards Published: 21 October 2019 I feel keenly the loss of three fine Orangemen. Michael Phelan and Brian Kennaway, who both became close friends, and Ian Wilson,...
